Takeshi Kitano (北野 武, Kitano Takeshi, born 18 January 1947) is a Japanese director, comedian, singer (mostly as part of his comic career), actor, show host, film editor, presenter, screenwriter, author, poet, painter, and one-time video game designer who has received critical acclaim, both in his native Japan and abroad, for his idiosyncratic cinematic work. Japanese film critic Nagaharu Yodogawa once dubbed him "the true successor" to the influential filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. With the exception of his works as a film director, he is known almost exclusively by the name Beat Takeshi (ビートたけし, Bīto Takeshi) – although he has been credited as the mononym "Takeshi" for his acting role in the movie Johnny Mnemonic. Since April 2005, he has been a professor at the Graduate School of Visual Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts. Kitano owns his own talent agency and production company, Office Kitano, which launched Tokyo Filmex in 2000.

Some of Kitano's earlier films are dramas about Yakuza gangsters or the police. Described by critics as using an acting style that is highly deadpan or a camera style that approaches near-stasis, Kitano often uses long takes where little appears to be happening, or editing that cuts immediately to the aftermath of an event. Many of his films express a bleak or nihilistic philosophy, but they are also filled with humor and affection for their characters. Kitano's films leave paradoxical impressions and can seem controversial. The Japanese public knows him primarily as a TV host and comedian. He hosts a weekly television program called Beat Takeshi's TV Tackle, a kind of panel discussion among entertainers and politicians regarding controversial current events.

In 2010, the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris held a one-man show displaying his paintings and installations. A room in the basement played a 12-hour loop of his work as a TV host.

Biography

Kitano was born on 18 January 1947, in Tokyo. His father worked as a house painter.

, 2h5Directed byTakeshi KitanoOriginJaponGenresComedy, ActionActorsTatsuya Fuji, Masaomi Kondō, Akira Nakao, Ben Hiura, Takeshi Kitano, Atomu ShimojōRoles MurakawaRating62% Ryūzō (Tatsuya Fuji) is a retired yakuza gangster who lives a quiet unassuming life with his salaryman son, Ryuhei (Masanobu Katsumura). Still in contact with his former lieutenant, Masa (Masaomi Kondō), Ryūzō maintains his short tempo with their regular get-togethers. One day, the old gangster receives a call from an impostor pretending to be his son asking for ¥5 million. Ryūzō sees through the trick and learns from police detective Murakami (Beat Takeshi) that a member from the Keihin Rengo gang is responsible. Re-uniting his seven former henchmen to strike back, Ryūzō learns that they have all grown weak with their old age. The elderly yakuza members soon learn that they must overcome their weaknesses if they are to prove to be a match against the younger Keihin Rengo.

Directed byYasuo FuruhataGenresDramaActorsKen Takakura, Yūko Tanaka, Koichi Sato, Hideji Ōtaki, Kimiko Yo, Takeshi KitanoRoles Teruo SuginoRating69% The story follows the journey of a man travelling some 300 kilometres from Toyama City, Japan to his wife's hometown in Nagasaki Prefecture, in order to scatter her ashes into the sea. Along the way he travels through many famous locations (Osaka, the ruins of Takeda Castle, Shimonoseki City, the Kanmon Bridge, Moji-ku, Kitakyūshū, and Sasebo, Nagasaki), recalling experiences with his wife along the way. He also befriends and is assisted by numerous strangers.

, 1h49Directed byTakeshi KitanoOriginJaponGenresDrama, Thriller, Action, CrimeThemesLa corruption policière, Mafia films, Seafaring films, Transport films, Yakuza films, Gangster filmsActorsTakeshi Kitano, Ryō Kase, Tomokazu Miura, Jun Kunimura, Tetta Sugimoto, Eihi ShiinaRoles ÔtomoRating68% The film begins with a sumptuous banquet at the opulent estate of the Grand Yakuza leader Sekiuchi (Soichiro Kitamura), boss of the Sanno-kai, a huge organized crime syndicate controlling the entire Kanto region, and he has invited the many Yakuza leaders under his control. After the formal conclusion of the banquet, Kato, the chief lieutenant of Sekiuchi, pulls one of the Yakuza leaders, Ikemoto, aside and makes plain that he is displeased with the news that Ikemoto has become friendly with a rival gang leader, Murase, while the two were unexpectedly imprisoned together. Kato orders Ikemoto to bring the unassociated Murase-gumi gang in line, and he immediately passes the task on to his subordinate Otomo (Beat Takeshi), who runs his own crew.

, 1h59Directed byTakeshi KitanoOriginJaponGenresDrama, Comedy, Comedy-dramaThemesFilms about children, Peinture, L'enfance marginaliséeActorsTakeshi Kitano, Kanako Higuchi, Ren Osugi, Kumiko Asō, Akira Nakao, Nao ŌmoriRoles MachisuRating73% Kitano plays Machisu, who is born into a wealthy family, but loses both his parents as a child. When his father (Akira Nakao) commits suicide after the collapse of his business, Machisu's stepmother (Mariko Tsutsui) sends him to live with an aunt and uncle who mistreat him and finally send him to an orphanage. As a young man, Machisu (Yurei Yanagi) attends art school and finds his style of painting challenged by the more experimental and conceptual work turned in by his classmates. Machisu takes a job in order to pay for art school, and strikes up a friendship with a fellow co-worker, Sachiko (Kumiko Aso), who seems to grasp his artistic vision. They get married and have a daughter. As he grows older, Mashisu's obsession with contemporary art controls his whole life, leaving him insensitive of everything around him, including the death of his own daughter (Eri Tokunaga) and his wife's desertion. He tries to please the art critics, remaining penniless. He is caught up in a fire and almost dies. Losing all his previous works, he is left with a single half-burnt soda can, which he assesses at 200,000 yen and tries to sell. This ends up kicked carelessly away when his wife picks him up from the street. They walk away together, seemingly finally rid of his artistic obsession.

, 2h20Directed byYoichi SaiOriginJaponGenresDramaActorsTakeshi Kitano, Kyōka Suzuki, Joe Odagiri, Yutaka Matsushige, Tomoko Tabata, Mari HamadaRoles Joon-pyong KimRating70% In 1923, the young Kim Shun-Pei moves from Cheju Island (South Korea), to Osaka (Japan). Through the years, he becomes a cruel, greedy and violent man and builds a factory of kamaboko (processed seafood products) in his poor Korean-Japanese community, where he exploits his employees. He makes a fortune, abuses and destroys the lives of his wife and family, has many mistresses and children and shows no respect to anyone. Later he closes the factory, lending out the money with high interest and becomes a loan shark. His hateful behavior remains unchanged to his last breath, alone in North Korea. The film is told from the perspective of Masao, his legitimate son by his abused and degraded wife, who knows nothing about his father other than to fear him.

, 2h13Directed byKinji Fukasaku, Kenta FukasakuOriginJaponGenresScience fiction, Thriller, ActionThemesPolitical films, Dystopian filmsActorsTatsuya Fujiwara, Ai Maeda, Shugo Oshinari, Yuma Ishigaki, Sonny Chiba, Miyuki KanbeRoles KitanoRating47% Three years after the events of the first film, the survivors of previous Battle Royales have formed a rebel group called the Wild Seven which is led by Shuya Nanahara. A class of teenagers from Shikanotoride Junior High School (鹿之砦中学校, Shikanotoride Chūgakkō) are kidnapped by the Japanese government. Instead of stereotypically studious Japanese students, these ninth graders are “a ragtag collection of delinquents and losers from all over Japan,” including tough-guy rugby players and punks with dyed hair. More importantly, many are orphans whose parents or family died in bombings by the Wild Seven. After their school bus is diverted to an army base, the students are herded into a cage, surrounded by armed guards, and confronted by their schoolteacher, Riki Takeuchi, who lays down the ground rules of the new Battle Royale game. Wild Seven is hiding out on a deserted island (filmed on Hashima Island), and instead of being forced to kill each other, as in the old Battle Royale, the students are sent off to war and ordered to attack the terrorist group’s hideout en masse and kill Shuya within 72 hours. Most of the students are not interested in being forced to avenge their families, but they are coerced to fight through exploding metal collars, which their captors can detonate by remote control. The teacher shows them a line in the caged classroom: those who wish to participate are instructed to cross the line, while those who refuse to participate will be killed. The students are put into 'pairs'; if one student dies, then his or her partner will be killed via collar detonation.